This invention relates to a stretcher lifting device which may be mounted on the frame beneath the body of an ambulance and may the extended and tilted to receive the stretcher or patient transporter and thereafter raised for transferring the stretcher/transporter into the body of the ambulance.
Emergency medical technicians who respond to medical emergencies in ambulances and similar medical emergency vehicles must on occasion transfer large patients from a stretcher, litter or mobile transporter (all of which are hereinafter referred to as "stretcher") into the vehicle. If the technicians are small, or if one or more may be a woman, or other persons of relatively slight frame and structure, and the patient is a large person, the technicians may find it difficult if not impossible to lift the stretcher into the ambulance without further injury to the patient or injury to the medical technicians. Other problems in this regard are discussed in DiMucci U.S. Pat. No. 5,495,914.
Although this difficulty may be significant, even critical, especially where time is of the essence, the prior art has not addressed the problem adequately. For example, Eelman et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,135,350 discloses a carrier for an ambulance litter for transporting a patient between the ambulance and a gurney; DiMucci et al. '914 discloses a powered patient transporter while Lim U.S. Pat. No. 2,470,314 and Stasinos U.S. Pat. No. 2,643,395 disclose emergency stretchers retractably mounted in the trunk of a car. Werpert U.S. Pat. No. 4,078,269 and Black et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,541,134 each relate to litter frames mounted in an ambulance, both being directed to vibration dampening/cushioning of the stretcher and patient during transport. Layer U.S. Pat. No. 3,831,996 relates to a stretcher support for an ambulance moveable from the horizontal rest position to an extended inclined position permitting easy mounting and removal of a stretcher from the frame.
Somewhat analogous to the problem of lifting and transferring patients into and out of ambulances is that of lifting and lowering a disabled person on a wheelchair between a vehicle and a floor or ground. The lift being raised from a stowed position beneath the vehicle to a raised position next to the vehicle after a lift frame is pulled manually transversely from beneath the vehicle and thereafter lowered. The lift may again be raised to permit the wheelchair to be rolled into the vehicle and the lift returned to its stowed position. For example, Svenson U.S. Pat. No. 4,941,797 discloses a lifting arrangement for use by individuals in wheelchairs for moving laterally between the inside and outside of a van, the apparatus including a platform having a scissors mechanism attached thereto and two frame members extendable from beneath the chassis of the vehicle. However, a stretcher being elongated and entering into the vehicle in the direction of elongation of the vehicle requires substantial structural differences so that extension and retraction of the stretcher support from beneath the ambulance is provided, and additionally for permitting the rolling of the stretcher onto the ambulance floor.